Modern recordings on wax cylinder

If you thought you’d never have a chance to release your hit single on the wax cylinder think again. A band obsessed with the Victorian era did just that, having a DIY’er produce the cylinders for them. The story was covered by the BBC and includes a lousy attempt to build a phonograph to play back the recording. The video shows their craftsmanship (or lack of it) but it’s not even in the same realm as the masterpiece we saw last September. You do, however, get to see the production equipment used at about 2:45 into the clip.

OMG!!!! What are they thinking???!!!! Music without DRM!!!! Someone call the MAFIAA gestapo on these people!!! Let’s have their internet disconnected (doesn’t matter why, just do it)!!! Let’s sue them for $150000 per wax cylinder [/sarcasm off]

Nice hack. It’s hard to replicate some old technology. I’d like to see a vinyl record making machine done on the cheap.

The device shown on the BBC is a neat hack, but until I had an idea as to what the “stylus” was doing to the wax, i wouldn’t go anywhere near the cylinder with it… unless I had a spare.

Looking back at the HAD September masterpiece, it reminded me that the site hosting that design has a whole slew of others, my favorite being the “Tim Brooks” method, which used a turntable whose tone arm swung beyond the side of the device to engage a wax cylinder spun on an old Edison or similar placed along side.

Neat but the DIY cylinder player might work better if they used a slow speed AC synchronous motor or a low speed tape transport motor and a belt or rubber wheel reduction drive in place of the high speed DC motor and gears.